ROOF Blog

The lack of mobile phone reception and broadband coverage in rural areas has become the number one issue in dissuading young people from staying on in the countryside, according to the chair of the Commission for Rural Communities. In a report to the prime minister, Stuart Burgess, the government’s rural advocate, said that the long-term future of the countryside is in jeopardy because so many young people are being forced out of rural areas to find homes, jobs and support.

Hundreds of England’s village churches could be revived and up to 10,000 affordable homes built for local families – if churches sold land and buildings to housing associations, according to research by the National Housing Federation. The Federation believes that with the Church of England owning an average of eight acres of land per Anglican village church, in addition to parsonages and church halls, every rural place of worship could deliver an average of one new affordable home. Federation chief executive David Orr said: ‘By making land available for housing, rural churches would increase their chances of survival and also help meet local housing need.’

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has shortlisted 265 bids totalling nearly £550m in round two of its Kickstart housing delivery programme.

Shortlisted bidders include a mix of RSLs along with national and local developers aiming to unlock up to 22,000 homes across the country.

Bidding opened in September with the criteria that eligible schemes should be housing-led with a minimum of 50 homes (fewer in rural areas or if the scheme delivers to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5 or 6) and that sites should have detailed planning consent in place or the ability to achieve this by the end of March 2010.

Sir Bob Kerslake, HCA chief executive, said: ‘Kickstart continues to be a crucial component in maintaining momentum in the house building industry.’

A due diligence process will now follow, which will look in detail at value for money, design, financial viability and risk, as well as an assessment of quick delivery.

New research from the National Housing Federation reveals north England’s rural population has been ‘overlooked’ by policy makers, while facing the dual challenge of ‘staggeringly’ high house prices and ‘crippling’ low incomes. The research found that 86 per cent of the north’s most expensive house price districts are predominantly rural and almost 66 per cent of England’s most deprived rural areas are in the north. The federation has called for the government to create a ‘northern rural way initiative’ to combat the current economic crisis.

A Campaign to Protect Rural England study has accused developers of concreting over greenfield land, rather than build on brownfield sites, because the land is easier to build on and the houses can be sold for more. The CPRE wants tighter restrictions on the scale, location and timing of greenfield land release and more incentives for developers to build on brownfield land first.

People who live in the suburbs are eight times more likely to live in their dream home than those who live in the countryside, a survey from Legal & General has found. Around 34 per cent of people who live in suburbia have their ‘ideal’ property, compared to 4 per cent of those in the country. Despite this figure, 28 per cent of those questioned thought their perfect home would be found in the countryside, and 23 per cent admitted they did not think they would ever find their dream home.

The planning system must not become a ‘tool for promoting economic development’, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said, setting out its vision for the future of the English countryside. The CPRE describes the countryside it wants to see by 2026, its centenary year, as where urban regeneration contributes to green space, affordable housing, vibrant neighbourhoods and people-friendly transport. It expects more than two million ‘high quality homes’ will have been built and energy efficient buildings and low carbon communities would be commonplace. It also wants more planning decisions to be taken locally.

More than 100,000 young adults will leave rural towns and villages in England in the next three years due to a shortage in affordable houses research by the National Housing Federation (NHF) has found. It estimated 103,000 people aged 24 to 35 will migrate out of rural places to urban locations by 2012, because they cannot afford to live there. Around 100,000 new affordable homes are needed to be built to meet demand in rural areas in the next 10 years. The Federation is launching a new campaign today aimed at tackling the housing crisis in the countryside.

A committee of Scottish MPs has accused the Scottish planning system of exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing in rural Scotland. The rural affairs and environment committee said the planning system is burdened by a centuries-old belief that the countryside should be protected from development, and called for an end to the ‘entrenched conservative planning culture’.

The government has launched a consultation on a single planning document that will replace four existing policies for sustainable economic growth in urban and rural areas. The aim is to provide greater certainty for businesses and assist local authorities take quicker decisions on planning applications.